EXPLORING THAI MEN SHOPPING BEHAVIOR FOR CLOTHING AND FASHION PRODUCTS Warittha Thamthada Prattana Punnakitikashem* College of Management, Mahidol University Bangkok, Thailand *E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT Fashion has been an area of interest in consumer research for many years. In the past decade, men have begun to be interested in their appearance and demand more variety in clothing items. Research and trend indicate there are high potential for men’s products to grow. Thus, menswear product is very interesting market to study. The purpose of this research is to study factors that influence Thai men to buy fashion product and to study on the insight of Thai men consumer behavior in order to be beneficial for marketing of men’s wear product. This research helps the marketing department team at any men’s wear fashion companies to work more effectively with the marketing plan for menswear product in order to know the factors that influence Thai men to buy clothing and other fashion product. The qualitative method is used for this study by conducting the in-depth interview with 12 Thai men, aged 20-35 years old. All respondents live in Bangkok and do shopping for clothes at least once in two months. Result in this research identified seven key factors for male shopping practice, which are brand image, designs, quality, price, store location, promotion, and salesperson. Brand image and promotion have been indicated as central traits. This study has indicated that men are very much participating in the shopping arena and as very active participants, which should not be neglected or ignored. Keywords: 1) Men 2) Fashion 3) Consumer behavior 4) Perception 5) Marketing Fashion is always changing. It has significantly affected all aspects of the apparel industry in recent years, especially on menswear. As time pass by and men’s lifestyles and work requirements changed, they began to demand more variety in clothing items so they could express their individuality and be comfortable at the same time. Men today are interested in building a fashionable, but comfortable wardrobe and are actively involved in the process of selection of apparel. (Torres at al. 2001) Moreover, the increase interest in fashion and style is no longer the privilege of only the women, there is an obvious change in attitude of the male population towards garments which could indicate

1. Introduction Fashion has been an area of interest in consumer research for many years. “Fashion is a driving force that shapes the way people live—it influences apparel, hairstyles, art, food, cosmetics, cars, music, toys, furniture, and many other aspects of our daily lives that we often take for granted.” (Solomon Michael R., Rabolt Nancy J., 2002) Consumer behavior towards fashion clothing affects all aspects of the fashion industry, design, production, and merchandising and promotion at all levels, as much as it affects retailing. In fashion industry, the only thing constant is “change”.

46

ABEJ

trends to come where gender identity might need to make way for their selfidentity. (Torres at al. 2001) For the past few years, men have been spending more money on clothes

than they ever did in the past as they have taken an increased interest in their appearance. (Roberto A. Ferdman. 2014)

Figure 1: The percentage year-on-year growth of menswear in markets (www.euromonitor.com, 2013) From Figure 1, the world market for menswear is expected to exceed $450 billion in 2014, with the Americas representing 35%, or almost $156 billion, of the global market. This growth represents a market expansion of more than 14% since 2009. (Website: www.euromonitor.com, 2013) Moreover, there is a research shows that men are now interested in their appearance more than in the past. Not only with fashion product, but also with the entire male grooming product industry around the world is expected to generate more revenue by 2015, according to the research from global industry analyst. (Website: www.reportlinker.com, 2014) According to the research and trend indicates that men’s products are now having high potential to grow and men also increase interest in their appearance, menswear product is considered to be a very interesting market to focus on and study. The marketing department at many a leading fast fashion companies in Thailand is struggling when planning the media and marketing plan for menswear brand in the company, as they do not know the insights behavior of this end consumer group well

enough. The team does not know what factors would be the most effective ways to approach and to motivate this group of consumer to buy clothing or other fashion products. The research objectives of this study are to study factors that influence Thai men to buy clothing and other fashion products and to study on the insight of Thai men shopping behavior. The research question of this study can be summarized as “What are the factors that influence Thai men to buy clothing and other fashion products?” This research topic will help the marketing department team to work more effectively with the marketing plan for menswear product. It could be useful for the media selection, promotion setting and some other activities that they could come up with in the future. This research will help to create more opportunity to sell menswear product and essential to keep the brand in men’s mind. This will also help the team to allocate and spend the budget wisely, which can benefit the company’s financial cost. The section consists of literature

47

ABEJ

review, which includes theory about men behavior towards fashion product. It is followed by research methodology. Research finding and discussion are presented. Finally, conclusion of research is presented.

need for clothes. The study claimed that men are more focused on their logical needs when making a purchase while women are more focused on their emotional needs. The research also indicated that men are very much aware of the fashion styles. Men also find physical appearance very important and admit that first impression of a person is very essential. On the other hand, although they all know the importance of physical appearance, some men still do not have a positive response to the idea of actually going shopping. (Jirasek and Safarli, 2010) Another research found is about the relationship of fashion leadership, fashion magazine content and loyalty tendency from Bailey and Stoltz (2008). The results indicated that general fashion trends, products and celebrity news were the most significant fashion magazine content factors that influence consumers’ loyalty towards fashion magazines. Moreover, the findings of the study also indicated that Generation Y students prefer brands that used celebrity’s endorsement that they already recognize. They look to celebrities for fashion information and fashion leadership. Price Price plays an important role in men shopping behavior. The research indicated that men are not likely to spend a lot of money on clothing unless they feel a real need for it. However, if they really need it, they could pay a higher price than usual. (Jirasek and Safarli, 2010) Kuruvilla, et al (2009) reported about the gender differences in mall shopping in India. The hypothesis and result are shown in the Tables 1.

2. Literature Review 2.1 Male Shopping Behavior in Global View According to the past research from Jirasek and Safarli, (2010), studied on the topic of “How do Men Shop for Garment?”, they used many factors to determined which are shopping preferences, attitudes, consistency in shopping, price, quality perception, brands of clothing, store attributes, and the help men need while shopping. After a deep insight on the subject of men’s shopping behavior, the finding indicated that when men get involved with shopping for clothing, they mostly enjoy it more with a companionship. It could be their girlfriend or wife or with one of their friends because larger number of people makes the shopping experience more stressful for them. Having company while shopping also provides men a little more security in their fashion choices because men expect from someone to give them some advices about choices they make. Moreover, men feel more comfortable to shop with a company because they think it’s more fun in their search for fashion items. Personal Identity This factor is about men’s shopping preferences, celebrities’ influence towards men and brand image. Robertson (2005) also mentions the factor of “need” when it comes to shopping. The study indicated that men go shopping when they actually

48

ABEJ

Table 1: Hypothesis of gender differences and shopping behavior (Shelja J. Kuruvilla, Nishank Joshi and Nidhi Shah, 2009)

Table 2: Finding of gender differences and shopping behavior (Shelja J. Kuruvilla, Nishank Joshi and Nidhi Shah, 2009)

According to Table 1 and 2, the study indicated that women have more positive attitude to mall shopping and they purchase fashion categories more often than men. However, men visit the mall more often and spend more time and more money than women. Mall is considered to be the popular destination for both men and women. Although there are some differences in gender’s behavior, but the result shows that men also do shopping and when they shop, they even spend more money and time than women. Women do window-shopping more often than men, but men are the real shoppers who spend more money on products that they actually want. This finding also relate with study of Jirasek and Safarli, (2010) in the price factors. Product When men think of quality of clothing, they mostly rely on their own judgment. Men do not relate quality to one particular attribute. According to the research, touch and feel of the garments plays an essential role in shopping process for men. The research indicated that most men tend to

have a physical contact with the items and that includes touching the clothes that they choose. They would choose the clothes that are comfortable to wear rather than choosing the fashionable one (Jirasek and Safarli, 2010). Another research indicated that for customers’ ranking of the product aspect, quality is the top rank that people expect to get of a strong brand and a quality product delivers excellent performance to them (Md. Mazedul Islam, 2014). Place Jirasek and Safarli, (2010) reported that time spent in the store of male consumers is rather short. Participant observation results of this study revealed that the average figure was 11 min and 45 sec while other authors also claim that men do not spend much time in the store shopping. When the author questioned the participants about the in-store shopping experience, an interesting idea about online-shopping came up. One of the participants stated that he would shop online with great pleasure if only he had standard size of clothing. His main argument was the shorter time consumption.

49

ABEJ

men’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral online shopping attitudes are higher than the result of women, assuming that online shopping may not be as attractive or appealing to women as it is to men. This finding suggests that women are still unconvinced or skeptical about the benefits of online shopping. In the same way, this finding may show that females are still concerned and fearful about the risks and threats associated with online shopping.

Dholakia et al. (2002) also claimed that eshopping is dominated by men. Results by Garbarino and Strahilevitz (2002) indicated as well that men feel more comfortable when purchasing online. Men prefer to shop online because it allows them to spend shorter time on shopping, (Jirasek and Safarli, 2010). Another research from Bassam Hasan, (2010) represents the gender differences in online shopping attitude and the result (see table 3 and 4) shows that

Table 3: Correlation and means of attitude components (Bassam Hasan, 2010)

Table 4: Gender differences in attitudinal components (Bassam Hasan, 2010)

Branded Men’s wear from Jain, (2014). The research studied and investigated about the purchasing behavior of branded men’s wear. The finding of this research shows the reaction of consumers to an advertised discount.

This finding also support the result of Jirasek and Safarli, (2010), which indicated that men prefer shopping online because they are more time conscious and when they shop online, it allows them to spend shorter time on shopping. Promotion There is another research from India that studied about Purchasing Behavior of

Table 5: Purchase behavior VS Advertisements (Jain, 2014)

50

ABEJ

From Table 5 the result indicated that advertisements had no effect on the purchasing behavior of the respondents. 30 students and 53 professionals out of 150 respondents were not influenced by the advertisements. The data shows that the respondents purchased the branded men’s wear according to their need, Jain, (2014). 2.2 Thai Men Shopping Behavior One research from Thai academic journal of Lerkpollakarn and Khemarangsan, (2010), studied on Thai Consumers behavior towards fashion clothing, mentioned about two interesting factors that involved with consumer when shopping, which factors are about identity and lifestyles. For identity factors, it plays a strong influence on consumers’ behavior in fashion clothing, as some of them choose a product simply by self-confidence, mood, personal style, celebrities’ influence or even brand image. Fashion is based on mood and emotions. People wish to be involved with fashion and it is an emotional factor that leads consumers to buy fashion clothes, as they want themselves to be modern and attractive. From this factor, the author set the hypothesis, which said that women are easily affected by fashion trends and celebrities more than men. The result indicated that women were likely to buy fashion clothing by affected from celebrities and models more than men do and women tend to follow fashion trend from Magazines and TV shows more than men. This research finding relate with the result of Lauren R. Bailey (2008), which indicated that consumers prefer brands that used celebrity’s endorsement that they already recognize. They look to celebrities for fashion information and fashion leadership. Although men tend to follow fashion trend from Magazines and TV shows less than women, but there is some relationship derived from these studies, which would be investigated furthermore. For the lifestyle factor, consumers often choose certain kinds of products, services and activities according to their

life style such as profession, quality, and price. Profession here means the occupation, which also influences clothes buying decision according to different roles and status in the society of each person. Next is the quality of clothing, which is considered to be the main factors of consumer towards buying decision. The consumer will look for the quality and durability of products whether it can be used for long term. The design is also an important motivation for purchasing and consumption of fashion. The last one is price, which is another factor that influences the purchase of a product since consumers consider the one with better price as the better product (Hanf and Wersebe, 1994). From these factors, the author set the hypothesis about price, which said that both men and women would consider the price before buying the garment in the same proportion. The result shows likewise as in hypothesis. 2.3 Hypothesis Development In conclusion, to apply all of consumer behavior theory from both global and local results, there are five factors that are related with each other from both global and local, which will be used to be the hypothesis factors with Thai men consumers as follows, Factor1: Consumer’s identity (Shopping preferences, celebrities’ influence and brand-image) Factor2: Price (Acceptable price for men) Factor3: Product (Quality, design) Factor4: Place (Online or Offline, location) Factor5: Promotion (Advertised discount) From these five factors, five hypotheses also derived in order to find out if these five factors influences Thai male to buy clothing or other fashion product as in theory. Hypothesis1: Brand image and celebrity endorsement has influenced Thai men to buy fashion product.

51

ABEJ

Hypothesis2: Price is one of the factors that Thai men consider before buying clothes, but it is not their first priority. Hypothesis3: Thai men consider quality of clothes as the first priority when buying clothes or other fashion product Hypothesis4: Thai men shop online more than in the stores because it consumes less time. Hypothesis5: Advertisement discount had no effect on the purchasing behavior of Thai men. According to the information from the secondary research data shown in this literature review, they show the behavior of men regarding drivers of fashion product purchase. These hypotheses and the framework for research questions setting are developed as seen in the following figure. The finding will benefit the marketing department to work on the marketing plan in the future.

to take place and to be tape-recorded. Each interview took about 10 minutes. Field notes were also taken during each interview to help the researcher to recognize all the answers of each interviewee during the interview. Interview questions were developed from the framework of Jirasek and Safarli, (2010) and other relevant research. This research method is designed to understand the insight of male consumer behavior in Thailand. The respondents’ answers help the marketing department to understand more on male’s attitude and behavior in order to do the marketing plan in the future. 3.2 Participants The interview was conducted from 12 Thai males aged between 20 to 35 years old. The respondents who are chosen represent the consumer of menswear in Thailand. The respondents are divided into three group of age range, 20-25 which consider as young adult or college students, 25-30 as a first jobber group, 3035 as young executive or manager level, 4 people for each group. The reason for this selection is not to compare the differences in ages, but in order to exclude the bias caused by the age difference of the consumers. Thai men who are selected are urban men live in Bangkok who shops for fashion product at least once in two months. The reason why Bangkok is the selected city for this research is because Bangkok has generated the most revenue and has the biggest share of revenue for the company for decades. (LME Company Profile, 2014). Results Interview was conducted from 12 Thai males aged between 20 to 35 years old. All of them pass the screening factor, which specify that he must shops for fashion product at least once in two months. Some of the participants were cut off from the interview. To be exact, three men were cut off because they did not pass the screening factor. All of the interviewees who were asked to be involved in the interview were

3. Research Methodology 3.1 Research Setting The qualitative research is used in this study because of ability to provide an in-depth understanding of consumer behavior and reasons that create such behavior. The qualitative method investigates why and how of consumer’s decision making, not just what, where and when. Data were collected by the in-depth interviews with experienced male shoppers. “In-depth interview is a personal interview where a single respondent is investigated by a skilled interviewer to discover underlying motivations, attitudes, and feelings on a topic” (Hair, 2008). The objective of the interviews is to gain more insight into this research topic. This type of interview can be used to exchange information freely, gain detailed understanding of complicated behavior, or to interview with people who are hard to reach, (Lee, 2001). Interviews were tape-recorded in order to make sure that the interview has accurate transcription. The participants already gave permission for the interviews

52

ABEJ

asked about their approval to be included in the research. All of them are Thai nationality. Youngest respondent was 24 and the oldest was 35 years old. Average age of interviewed men was 28 years old. Dividing the age of participants into three categories, 20-25, 26-30, and 31-35. Consumer Identity Results showed view of respondent towards brand image and celebrity endorsement. According to the interview, 10 men out of 12 mentioned that they care for brand-image because of many reasons. Most of the reasons are because of brand image can make them look good and differentiates them from other. If the products have brand name, it will influence men to buy more than the product with no brand. One interesting answer is that, “I always buy clothes for its brand name. It’s important to show the social status” or “I think branded clothes gives the image for other people to see”. These statements show the insight of consumer who use branded clothes to show his status in society. Consumers who take a brand as important to their lives will likely to build constructive and positive attitudes towards the brand. The result indicated that when consumers purchase the product he is also purchasing its image along with it (Bello and Holbrook, 1995). Their inspirations for new purchase mostly are from the Internet and TV. Thai men nowadays do not buy magazines by themselves, but for those who do, they only mentioned two magazines, which are GM and Men’s Health. Celebrity endorsement can also affect Thai men in terms of the role model of how to dress. There were 8 people from 12 who said that they tend to follow celebrities sometimes and see celebrities as their example. Thai men are smart. Although they follow celebrities sometimes, they will choose to follow only the style that suits them. Men may not follow celebrity all the time, but most of their attitude towards celebrity endorsement is positive and they think it is a normal thing to do. In conclusion, Brand image and celebrity

endorsement can help influence Thai men to buy clothing and other fashion product, which consistent with both global and local literature review of Bailey (2008) and Lerkpollakarn and Khemarangsan (2010). The reason of this result is because Thai men are now care more about their appearance as they want themselves to look good among others. They want to be different and want people to perceive the good image in them. Price Results showed view of respondents towards price. From the interview, maximum price that the interviewee would pay highest was 15,000 Baht per one piece of clothes and the lowest was 1,500 Baht per one piece. Average price that men would pay for their maximum was around 7,000 Baht per one piece. The price range of clothes per piece that is acceptable for age 20-25 is around 1,000-5,000 Baht, for 2630 is up to 10,000 – 15,000 Baht, and for 31-35 is up to 10,000 Baht as they started to have more responsibility than age 2630. However, half of them would still consider the clothes although it costs more than their expectation. If they really like the product or if the product really has good quality, they tend to consider it and might even buy it. The rest who refused to buy had the same reason that they can find something else that look similar in cheaper price as nowadays there are so many choices for them in the market. There were only two men who did not mention price in their top three aspects to consider when shopping, one is 24 and another one is 27 years old. The rest 10 men all mentioned about price in their top three factors, but 7 from 10 mentioned price as the third rank as they concerned more about the product quality and design, one men set price as the second rank, which come after fashion trend. There was only one man who mentioned that price is the first aspect for him to consider as he is quite price sensitive. So this result is consistent with the literature review of Kuruvilla et al, (2009), which mentioned that men are the

53

ABEJ

real shoppers who spend more money on products that they really want and this also support the hypothesis that price is also one of the factors that Thai men consider before buying clothes, but it is not their first priority. The reason why price is not their main issue to consider is also because they care more about their looks. They are willing to pay more on the items if they feel that the products could give them pleasure with the styles and high quality. Product Results showed view of respondents towards quality. Seven from twelve of the interviewee mentioned about product quality in their top three factors, but only two interviewees who give quality as the first priority. The result indicated that the first aspect of people when consider clothing could be vary depend on customer’s preferences. It could be design, brand, function, fashion trend, size or price, but the factors that men mentioned first the most is about the design or something that relate to their appearance and then the quality comes afterward. Five interviewees from all twelve did not mention about quality at all in their top three aspects. However, they all have the same idea that the good quality of clothes should have good material used, good fabric, comfortable to wear, and long lasting. Interesting same reason derived in this part as most men answered their first aspect related to their personal appearance such as design, trend, style, or size that fits them. It shows that men are now interested in their appearance more than in the past, which support with the information of men’s wear growth that is already mentioned in the introduction part. Author would like to separate the factor of design and quality from each other in this part because when they mentioned their top three aspects, most of them separate design and styles out of quality. The design and styles is something that could make them look good in terms of appearance, but when they mentioned about quality, they talked about the fabric used, the quality of

material and the long lasting of the clothes. In conclusion, the result is not consistent with the literature review of Jain, (2014) and hypothesis, which said that Thai men consider quality of clothes as the first priority when buying clothes or other fashion product. Place Results showed view of respondents towards place. Ten interviewees from twelve said that store location is very important for them because they do not want to go far away where they have to pay for cost of transportation. They rather choose the one that is more convenient to go or maybe where it is close to their home. Only two men from twelve who said he did not mind about store location because the first man said that most of his clothes were from abroad as it is quite hard for him to find his size in Thailand and another one did not mind to go a little bit farther if he really want the products. Although ten of them prefer the convenience as they do not like to go far away and as the result indicated that ten of them use Internet for their inspiration, they still choose not to shop online as they think that there is weak point in online shopping that they cannot try or see the real product. Five of them have experience shopping online, but never for clothes. 50% of interviewee sees that online shopping is a smart and convenient way, but they still prefer shopping at the front store. This finding is also not consistent with the literature review from Bassam Hasan (2010) from India, which mentioned that men shop online more than in the stores because it consumes less time. In fact, Thai men prefer to shop for the clothes that they could touch and try at the store as time consumption in the store is not that important to them as much. As in the literature review mentioned that the average time spending of men when shopping is only about 11 minutes, but the result from the interview indicated that men are now spending more time to shop. The maximum time that they spend is around 4

54

ABEJ

hours and the minimum time spend is around 15 minutes for those who already know what they are looking for. The average time consumption for shopping is around 1 hour, which is a lot more than in the past research result. Promotion Results showed view of respondents towards promotion. Surprisingly, 11 men from 12 said with exciting voice that they do like the sale signage and they tend to shop more when it is sales time. They have the positive feeling with the advertised discount sign at front store as it motivates them to shop and draw their attention to take a look in the store. However, there were three men who mentioned that the advertised discount really attracts them, but it still depends on the brand. If it is not their preference brand, they just ignore it. It is no longer only female who like the sale signage, but men also love it. According to the answers from the respondents, “Definitely yes”, “A lot! I love to buy when it’s sale time”, “Yes, very often”, “It impacts me a lot”, the words that they used to answer this question tried to emphasize that they really like to shop more when it is sale time and the sale signage really attract them. In conclusion, this result is not consistent with the literature review of Jain, (2014) and hypothesis, which mentioned that advertisements discount had no effect on the purchasing behavior of men consumer. In fact, the sale signage

has a big impact towards Thai men shopping behavior because people have the feeling that they could get cheaper price when they see the advertised discount, so it influence them to go shopping in the store. Other Factors Influenced Figure 2 showed the percentage view of respondents towards other factors. The factor that derived from the interview, which has been mentioned the most, is about the salesperson at the store. A salesperson can have a strong influence on consumers during shopping. Wilkie (1994) reported that many firms considered the salesperson's function five times more important than advertising because a salesperson has a strong influence on the consumer purchase decision as they generally has more product knowledge and more experience of sales interaction than consumers. There is another research indicated that the salesperson with a formal clothes received a significantly more positive attitude from all participants (Siwon Cho, 2001). In conclusion, salesperson is another factor that should be considered in menswear store because men perceive that salesperson can influence them to shop or walk out of the store. The interviewee mentioned that salesperson could give them some recommendation and help them to find the product that they want, so they could save more time during shopping. Moreover, if the service of salesperson is bad such as they are impolite, it could

Percentage of view of respondent towards other factors no other factor 25%

salespers on 33%

Occasion al event 8% Person that go with 17%

store decoratio n 17%

Figure 2: Percentage of view of respondent towards other factors

55

ABEJ

influence men to walk out or even do not consider to buy with this store again. One interview comment that salesperson really help him while shopping, but he prefers to have male salesperson to sell menswear because it is more reliable for him, “Salesperson can help me to choose, but it should be men, it’s more reliable when they sell menswear”.

be concluded in the Table 6 about the factors that consumers think it is important to consider when shopping for clothes and other fashion products. All five factors are proved to be important for them. However, in Table 7 that shows the comparison between hypothesis from literature review and result indicated that only two hypotheses are proved to be matching with the literature review. The rest are not consistent with literature review.

4. Conclusions From all the result and analysis, it can

Table 6: Summary of important factors for Thai men Factors

Result

Factor1: Consumer’s identity

Important

Factor2: Price

Important

Factor3: Product

Important

Factor4: Place

Important

Factor5: Promotion

Important

Table 7: Results VS Hypotheses Hypothesis Brand image and celebrity endorsement can help influence Thai men to buy fashion product. Price is one of the factors that Thai men consider before buying clothes, but it is not their first priority.

Result  

Thai men consider quality of clothes as the first priority when buying clothes or other fashion product

Thai men shop online more than in the stores because it consumes less time.

Advertisement discount had no effect on the purchasing behavior of Thai men.

56

X Thai men consider the aspect that concern with their appearance more such as design, trends, styles, or size that fits them. X Thai men prefer to shop at the store more than online because they want to see and try the actual product before they buy. X Advertised discount has a major impact towards Thai men as it can attract and persuade them to shop more.

ABEJ

After a deep insight on the subject of Thai men’s shopping behavior factors with the help of theories from various respected authors and conducted researches, some interesting ideas could be developed. By presenting a wide discussion about the overall results and analysis, we came to the point to conclude with factors that have been discovered in this study about factors that influence Thai men to buy clothing or other fashion product. In this research, seven key factors were identified from male shopping practice in order to be clearer in men’s shopping behavior. These factors are ranked by order as following: 1. Promotion 2. Brand image 3. Designs 4. Price 5. Store location 6. Quality 7. Salesperson Having this in mind that many of the results were different from the past research. It indicated that male shopping behavior has changed from the past. The product factor is divided into two attributes, design and quality because men care about the image and design that fits them more than the quality, as nowadays they tend to care more about their appearance. Price is still the factors that consumers consider, but not the main issue for them because design and quality of the product is more important. They do not like to go shopping far from home, but they still want to go shopping at the store because they want to see and try the product by themselves before purchase. The promotion has a very big impact to men. They get excited and have positive feeling towards sale signage just like women do. Lastly, salesperson quite has influence on them in terms of suggestion and recommendation, which could help them save time and decide easily. To conclude, the author would like to highlight the brand image and promotion as central traits, which can characterize male shopping experience as

more pleasurable. If the image of the brand is really good in men’s mind and the promotion have interesting advertised discount, male clothing shopping experience could be perceived as more efficient and more enjoyable. This conducted study can be concluded that men do have their own ideas and judgments towards their shopping for fashion product and they also possess their own type of shopping behavior. This study has indicated that men are very much participating in the shopping arena and as very active participants, which should not be neglected or ignored. There is a limitation which highlighted several opportunities for future research. The sample size of this study was limited. Therefore, the findings of our study cannot be generalized to all Thai Men. Future research might be able to extend to include more respondents and explore insights of their shopping behaviors. Recommendation Brand Image For long-term marketing plan to the brand, brand image is the thing that marketing department should fulfill in order to create good brand image in Thai men’s mind. Once they have good perception towards the brands, it would be long-term benefits to the company. In order to create good brand image, the marketing department should know which touch point they should choose to meet the target. In this case, the result indicated that most men use Internet and social network a lot in their daily life, so the online advertising should be the main touch point to men consumer. The men’s fashion magazines could be another way to get to those men who still read magazines. The finding is clearly identified that men mentioned to only two magazines, which are GM and Men’s Health, so marketing department could buy the advertisement in these two magazines and may use celebrities to talk about the brand in order to create reliability and to be the influencers.

57

ABEJ

The promotion that can attract men is often the discount, but only 50-70% discount is interesting enough to draw their attention, so the brand could use this discount once in a while to attract men to shop during the sale season, such as End of Season Sale or Mid-Year Sale. Other promotion rather than discount can also be used during the year, but the marketing team has to make sure that it is interesting enough to draw men’s attention. This is an interesting issue to investigate more in further research in order to know what promotion is suitable for men.

Promotion As they mentioned that they still prefer to go shopping at the stores, so the promotion, store decoration and visual merchandising should not be neglected as well, as they can attract men to want to take a look inside of the store. The promotion signage at the store is an important thing to consider as the result indicated that it has impact on men and can attract their eyes and attention to take a look in the store, so the marketing department should be careful about the signage used, such as its color, text size, or image used on the sign. 5. References

Bakewell, C & Mitchell, VW 2006, “Male versus female consumer decision-making styles”, Journal of business research, vol. 59, no. 12, Elsevier B.V., pp. 1297-1300 Blackwell, R. D., Miniard, P. W. & Engel, J. F. (2006). Consumer behavior. Mason: Thomson Dholakia, RR 1999, “Going shopping: key determinants of shopping behaviors and motivations”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 27, issue 4, pp. 154 – 165 Garbarino, E & Strahilevitz, M 2002, “Gender differences in perceived risk of buying online and the effects of receiving a site recommendation”, Journal of Business Research 57 (2004), pp. 768-775 Hair, J. F., Wolfinbarger, M. F., Ortinau, D. J., & Bush, R. P., 2008, .Essentials of marketing research. McGraw-Hill/Higher Education. Hasan, B., 2010, “The gender differences in online shopping attitude”, College of Business & Economics, Qatar University Hasan, B. 2010. “Exploring gender differences in online shopping attitude”.Computers in Human Behavior, 26(4), 597-601. Jirasek and Safarli, 2010, “How do Men Shop for Garment?”, Master thesis in Business Administration 15 ECTS, Gotland University Kuruvilla et al 2009, “An Exploration of gender differences in mall shopping in India”,India Kuruvilla, JS, Joshi, N & Shah, N 2009, “Do men and women really shop differently? An exploration of gender differences in mall shopping in India”, International Journal of Consumer Studies 33:6, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp. 715-723 Lauren R. Bailey, 2008, “The relationship of fashion leadership, fashion magazine content and loyalty tendency”, Elaine Stoltz Image Consulting, Fort Worth, Texas, USA Lee, Y., 2001, Male Consumers’ Behaviour in a High-Priced Clothing Market.Journal of Korean Home Economics Association English Edition: Vol, 2(1). Lerkpollakarn and Khemarangsan, 2010, “A Study of Thai Consumers behavior towards fashion Clothing”, Silpakorn University Md. Mazedul Islam, 2014, “Customer Perceptions in Buying Decision Towards Branded Bangladeshi Local Apparel Products”, Department of Textile Engineering,
Dhaka University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh

58

ABEJ

Otnes, C & McGrath, MA 2001, “Perceptions and realities of male shopping behavior”, Journal of Retailing, vol. 77, no.1, Elsevier Science Inc, pp. 111 – 137 Patton, MQ 1990, “Qualitative evaluation and research methods”, second edition, Sage publications, Newbury Park Prof. P K Jain, India 2014, “Purchasing Behavior of Branded Men’s wear”, Director, Faculty of Management studies, MLSU, Udaipur Roberto A. Ferdman, 2014, “The rise of man-shopping in five study charts”, retrieved from http://qz.com/186074/the-rise-of-man-shopping-in-five-studly-charts/ Solomon Michael R., Rabolt Nancy J., 2002, “Consumer Behavior in Fashion”, third edition, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall Thomas M., “Describing the brand wearing male consumer and his searching and evaluating behaviour in the retail environment”, North-West University Veronica Gabrielli, Ilaria Baghi and Vanni Codeluppi, 2012, “Consumption practices of fast fashion products: a consumer-based approach”, Department of Communication and Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy Umut Ayman and Anil K. Kaya, 2014, “Consumption of Branded Fashion Apparel: Gender Differences in Behavior”, Eastern Mediterranean University

59

ABEJ